A Buck for a Duck in His Truck

The other day I got the kind of phone cal I love to get. We, in Mississippi are fortunate enough to have two ladies that are working for the betterment of us all and for future generations. Lynn McMillan and Hollidae Robinson have been on all sides of the native plant scene for years and their progress is so impressive in this world that seems to be so wrapped up in red tape, everything moving slow as molasses. Amongst getting the awareness out to the right people who can act as conduits to begin a trend, they have taken the huge steps having our Commissioner of Agriculture, Andy Gibson and Governor Reeves to sign a bill into law designating April as Mississippi Native Plant Month. That is no small task, I can remember the amount of work that goes into getting bills signed from when my mother, Rita Martinson, was a Legislator for 24 years. It’s an arduous process that has to win the favor of a lot of people.

By signing this bill the Department Of Agriculture will be committed to fund some of the projects that have been and will continue to take place. The idea of funding a native plant month must have struck a tone of importance to get the attention of the leaders of our state. There has to be a level of educating the sponsors of the bill as well as the entire population of our state with hopes to slowly change the way that we think when it comes to adding plants to our world. I would imagine the importance of using more native plants will, in the long run, be good for our economy and our environment was driven home in their campaign to make awareness be available to everyone. The movement has me very excited, I think the way they are going about the drive is so smart therefore I believe it will be successful. Lynn and Hollidae are going to the garden centers around the state to make us aware that they need our help in getting not only spreading awareness to our retail customers but also to have the plants that we are preaching about be available. Most of us nursery people are very keen with the idea but most of us face the same issue. Native plants are very difficult to find at the wholesale level. Because of that consensus they have now turned towards the growers to assure them that the market will be there for them if they will start growing more for production at the wholesale level.

When I start looking at the plants that are considered Mississippi natives it turns out we already have a good amount of plants on that list but we need more. It would be just as easy for a landscape architect to draw in some native plants as it would be  to draw in the same ole same ole. As long as the plant material is available I think one would be wise to draw in a plant that is more conducive to our soil and our climate, there would be less loss and happier customers. That customer could also know that by using natives they are hugely helping with gaining more bio-diversity to their property which will bring a healthier plant world to them. We’ve all heard by now that we don’t have enough pollinators for this specific region of the world. Without pollinators the insect world winds up with unhealthy, declining populations. Plants can’t exist without pollinators and the earth can’t exist without plants. The decline of natural habitat from our growing population and housing developments doesn’t have to be a problem.

We have vast areas of native plants in Mississippi but those plants growing in our natural areas don’t get blasted with pesticides and fertilizers like the ones in our yards do. With more natives planted in our developments the use of dangerous pesticides, dangerous to both us and the plants, will drop dramatically. That makes planting native plants a cost effective, low maintenance option for planting in your yard. Hollidae and Lynn were kind enough this past week to introduce me to someone whose family has committed to do something about the lack of native plants to us guys trying to get them out there to you. We met in my yard which I am ashamed to say is not anywhere close to being even remotely a good model for a native plant yard.

Mine and Mimis yard is at a young stage and has plenty of room for more. It’s odd how things happen, Mimi and I  have become glued to a gardening show set in England. The show with 60 seasons is called Gardeners World. At first we used the show to lull us off to La-La land With it’s calm and quiet British demeanor. We have some close gardening friends who also love to nerd out in their garden who told us about this show and I believe they have changed our view of gardening forever. Instead of snoozing away we began to sit up straight and pay attention to the heads of some of the oldest and most beautiful gardens I have ever seen. We get a lot of behind the scenes, propagation and production methods but more importantly one of the most important lessons that I am taking away from these characters is patience is the key to a healthy garden. The timing of our getting introduced to this show was remarkable in that we had begun to lean in the direction of attracting more bio-diversity into our yard and using native plants when possible and slowing way down now that our forever base is in place. Then, as synchronicity usually comes we get introduced to Robert Ballard and his son Marshall from camp Creek Natives in New Albany , Mississippi.

The father and sons have committed to growing nothing but natives for the wholesale and retail market. They were such a pleasure to meet, it appeared that they were on the same mission and they are just the guys to be able to pull it off. Robert has another son involved in the business so with the three of them and a staff of growers I believe they will have great success . Camp Creek Natives has been doing this since 2015 so they are not new to the scene, I have no idea how our paths have not crossed, it makes me wonder what else agriculturally goes on right under my nose. I highly recommend going to their website, it tells a great story about who they are, how they got started and where they are headed. The list of plants is one that we can’t wait to get our hands on so as soon as the plants are available for the wholesale market we can start learning more about using natives so we can confidently relay that knowledge to our customers. I told Robert that we have recently opened up a new section of our yard where the plants that we will use there will have to be able to take wet, shady conditions in the winter and spring then turning to dry and shady for summer through fall. The plants that we will use in this area will have to be one hundred percent on their own, I’m not running irrigation down there, no pesticides, no synthetics, maybe some lights. Robert and his son, Marshall eyes lit up when I told them about our plans which we are well into now. We all walked down there for a look and I think he already had it worked out in his mind what plants could take those conditions and as he was naming some of them I was relieved to know that I was familiar with some of the names. It got Mimi and me really excited that he listed off some plants that we have not experienced, there is a whole new world of plants to learn, this never gets old. Mimi and I planted Timber Bamboo in the gully between our yard and the barn about ten years ago. The bamboo has really taken off and is more beautiful than we dreamed of. Now we are taking the branches off of every node as high as we can reach so you can see clearly into the bamboo forest and we are carving paths through the bamboo that will one day lead to who knows where. I have run lights so at night it truly is an art piece. This was our first experience with adding to a landscape by taking away. It cost us nothing but time to expose this bamboo patch for what it is. People talk about gardening being very therapeutic, we found exactly that. This is a very easy, no tools needed, shaded project that we can jump in anytime either or both of us feel like it. Lately when I can’t find Mimi in the house I know to head down to the bamboo patch to find her happily making light come through the thick canes. We have years, forever really, more things to do down there and in the main parts of our yard. We talk about adding some stone steps in places where the trails get steep, we talk about building a wooden platform in an open area for winter camping when we feel like popping up a tent, and now we talk about the plants that we will slowly add to the already thriving Iris grove that follows the creek that runs through the middle. We talk about how much fun this area will be for our maybe one day grand children to hide and seek and build forts.

The floor under the bamboo is a beautiful white from the fallen leaves making the place seem enchanted, I would think little kids would have a blast in there, I know these two kids -at -heart love it. We plan to build a small greenhouse off of the side of our barn that is included in this area, I’ll be able to run a heater on the cold nights so we can take cuttings, sprout seeds and hold things over in the winter. Finally the barn has a use besides aging my precious firewood and storing our tools. I will include pictures of our cool bamboo forest and the barn with the article on our Life’s A Garden blog in our website at Martinsons.com.

With our spillway now repaired which has done wonders for cleaning up the water we will now also be entering the world of aquatic plants and converging with the world of Mississippi native plants we will be able to confidently walk someone who is interested through both of those worlds as we learn it ourselves. I will always be grateful to all the people involved in getting the native plant awareness accelerated so we, as gardeners can begin this shift in our thinking. The buzz and the new products to offer is always nice for us nursery guys to be able to keep it interesting for our fellow gardeners.

I have to brag on me and Mimi for pulling off the impossible recently. We are one of the unlucky ones that made the list of streets that is serviced by a well in this region of Ridgeland that had a pump not act right. The city of ridgeland acted quickly thank goodness but in the process they were forced to ask those of us that are serviced by that well to please help by not irrigating our yards for the next 6 to 8 weeks. The parts to this pump are being made as fast as possible but I swear it was like the moment everyone agreed to participate the rain stopped and someone turned up the heat. Thank goodness Garden Works did not make that list, that would have been a serious disaster. Mimi remembered that people irrigate out of their ponds and lakes and asked me if I thought I could pull that set up together quickly enough. I really had no choice, our yard would wither away at this young stage and she was flashing those gorgeous blues at me, I got on it right away. I’m lucky to have friends who are really good at different aspects of getting an irrigation systems going. In 48 hours we hand trenched 175 feet by 18 inches deep, deep enough for the 1 1/2 inch pipe to connect to our existing system and the 220 volt wire in conduit that would run from the 3 horse power pump to our breaker box. I found the right pump 30 minutes before the irrigation place closed on a Saturday. That made it possible for us to work on the project all weekend long. Nelson Brown, our irrigation guy at Garden Works for 27 years lives close by and knew that we were in emergency mode. Even though it was his birthday Nelson came and jumped in with us. He hooked up pipes while I trenched right ahead of him.

Meanwhile Mimi called Bradly Martin from LightHouse outdoor lighting to see if he could squeeze us in. Bradley had helped us before in our yard and knew this would be considered an emergency for us with no hesitation pulled up Monday morning to do the last bit which is hooking the wire up to the pump and to the breaker box and from that to the irrigation timer box. I am very respectful of electricity and try to stop myself from fooling around with it when I can help it. When he was satisfied that the time to turn on the system on we primed the pump and PRESTO! We were irrigating our yard from our nutrient rich pond and the day was saved. We were so excited to see that water coming out of those heads we could barely sleep that night. We will get the water tested to make sure the alkalinity is where we would want it to be and to be prepared to use nitrogen fixing plants in our pond so we can be slowly adding organic nutrients to our yard every time we water, dreamy. We will forever be grateful to those two guys for understanding the importance of getting this done in a hasty fashion. I will always be reminded of how much experience Nelson has at irrigation by the tricks he knew to make it all come together. When I was getting my list together to run up to lowes for some of the supplies he reminded me to get a duck decoy. I looked at him funny, this was no time to be joking around about plastic ducks.  He laughed and repeated his request to put a duck decoy on that list. He texted me while I was Lowes to forget the duck because he had one in the back of his truck for which he would only charge me one buck, now I was really intrigued. He has done so many of these setup over the years that he knew that when the pump would come on that the weight of the water in the 2 inch pipe would cause my filter at the end of the pipe to dip down to the bottom of the pond and probably clog as it sucked in everything around it. I tied the poor duck to the pipe so the wire was pulled taut so that when the pump came on the filter would stay way clear of the muddy bottom, genius. I had already called my buddy who duck hunts if he had a decoy or two that he could spare before I knew that Nelson drives around with ducks in his trucks.

My buddy showed up with two more that evening. I got back in the pond and tied them to the end of the pipe for a backup to the backup to the backup duck. Now we have a happy family of plastic decoys bobbing around happily down near our pump. Maybe some real ducks passing through will come down to keep them company, hopefully they wont notice how stiff and socially awkward my ducks are, they don’t mean to be rude but their beaks are glued shut. That was an amazing amount of things coming together really fast, I would say that was downright a miracle. Hopefully for everyone involved this matter is put to rest as quickly as possible, if anyone can do it Mayor McGee and his staff can get it done, they have proven this with everything they do so far so I have a lot of faith. Hopefully we can get some rain in the meantime.